GPSA created an ad hoc committee this semester to help international graduate and professional students acclimate to UNM.
Graduate and Professional Student Association President Christopher Ramirez said the committee is a student-run initiative designed to give international grad students the direction they need and to answer questions about university life.
"What international graduate and professional students told us is that there's a variety of different kinds of challenges or needs that graduate students have and need to be expressed, including some basic ones, like the ability to connect and know each other on campus and support international student organizations," Ramirez said. "But then, there's specific issues relating to both academic and working issues for international graduate and professional students."
Japji Hundal, an international graduate student in the engineering department, said he is glad to participate in the GPSA ad hoc committee because it benefits students who are new to the U.S.
"The committee is a place where international students can come and address their concerns," he said.
Hundal said international graduate and professional students are sometimes not fully informed about the issues concerning them.
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"Many times students think certain rules are imposed by the University, and many times what happens is they are imposed by the federal government," he said. "Therefore, when students need clarification, they come to the Office of International Programs and Studies and get an answer. If there is something further which can be done on certain issues, that is when the action of the committee is going to come into it to try to help out in certain things or try to get certain answers."
OIPS is the traditional resource for international students, Ramirez said, and GPSA's committee has one distinct difference.
"OIPS is a University office," he said. "The biggest thing the GPSA is trying to do with this new student ad hoc committee is to provide a space for students to be able to have that voice for themselves."
Linda Melville, an international advisement specialist for OIPS, said her office might not offer the same support GPSA could.
"We're in a weird position of being the monitor as well as the advocate," she said.
Melville said OIPS has to consider federal requirements as well as student needs.
"We provide services to graduate international students and are responsible for doing whatever the University needs to do to complete the reporting that the Department of Homeland Security requires," she said.
Jiayun Feng, a graduate student in the communication and journalism department, said the committee satisfies a need on campus.
"The committee gives us a good opportunity to get to know each other because sometimes graduate students are quite scarce across campus," she said. "I think that it is good."
Committee members will meet Thursday evening to speak with applicants for chairman and cochairman positions, Ramirez said. They will also finalize the committee's scheduled meeting times, expected to start at the end of September.
